Here is why 2012 is really a very SPECIAL and UNIQUE year, regarding to the cycles of the Moon!

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Some people may ask: what's so special about year 2012?

Well, in fact 2012 is a very SPECIAL and UNIQUE year, regarding the cycles of the Moon. But to understand it, you need to know what a Lunation is, and what are Lunation Numbers.

A lunation is a complete cycle of the Moon around the Earth, and has a duration of about 30 days, divided in four "moon phases" (New Moon, Full Moon, etc...)

"Lunation Numbers" are numbers attributed to each cycle.

A mathematician and astronomer called Ernest Brown (sounds like "Emmet Brown" fom "Back to the Future", uh?) published a book on "lunar theory" in the 1930's explaining how to calculate the exact date and time of the future changes in the Moon phases.

Brown created a "table of lunations" and atributted a number to each cycle. Lunation number 1 was the lunation that started in the first New Moon of 1923.

Since then, that "lunation number" is always increasing. Lunation number 13, for example, was in early 1924.

The "lunation number" is widely used by the scientific community, since the 1930's.

Now, use the British date format, that is used all around the world, except the USA.

In the British (international) date format, the number of the day comes first, and the number of the month comes second.

For example:

11-10-2012 is the 11th of October of 2012.

Now, check the table again...

11-10-2012 (the 11th of October of 2012 in the international date format) was inside which Lunation cycle?

Correct: it was inside Lunation cycle number 1110, that ended on the 15th of October of 2012.

In the same way, 11-09-2012 was inside Lunation cycle number 1109

11-08-2012 was inside Lunation cycle number 1108

And there is goes, until 11-01-2012, that was inside Lunation cycle number 1101

Everything above is in the British (international) date format

Every day 11 of every month of 2012 was inside a Lunation cycle that was correspondent to the respective date (in the British format)

The date 11-12-2012 will also be inside Lunation cycle number 1112, as the date of 11-11-2012 was inside Lunation cycle number 1111

This makes 2012 a very special and unique year, because this kind of alignment between all the Lunation cycles of the year and a date inside each cycle, never happened before, and will never happen again, in any year in the future!

That's what so special about 2012!

2012 is special because of the dates of 11-01, 11-02, 11-03, etcetera, being inside the respective lunation cycles: 1101, 1102, 1103, etcetera...

But among all those cycles in 2012, lunations 1111 and 1112 are even more special.

1111 because it ended during a total solar eclipse visible from Australia on November 13th, and 1112 because it started during that same eclipse, and because it started in the month 11 of the year 12.

We are inside lunation 1112 now...

The dates of 11-12 (in the international date format) and 12-12-12 will take place inside lunation 1112.

The "end of the Mayan calendar" will happen inside lunation 1113. Interestingly enough, in the American date format, 11-13 is November 13th, the date of that total solar eclipse mentioned above.